The two differ significantly in style, however. While Poe advocated and practiced a "unity of effect" and a certain brevity, Le Fanu was by temperament a storyteller. As Wendell V. Harris notes, Le Fanu achieves "a kind of richness of character, situation, or narrative style possible only in more leisurely storytelling." His stories are often framed by two or more narrative voices. He contributed stories to at least eight periodicals (there may be many that remain unidentified), later republishing them in a variety of combinations and often adding to the later versions. Indeed, the length of many pieces makes it difficult to decide whether to classify them as short stories or novellas. Most of all, however, it is Le Fanu's habit of reworking and retelling stories--making sometimes small, sometimes significant changes in plot, adding or altering a character, transplanting the action to a different setting--that complicates any discussion of his short fiction.
For instance, in "Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess," published in November 1838 in the Dublin University Magazine, Le Fanu introduces a young heroine sent to live with an uncle whose reputation has been compromised by an unsolved murder that occurred in his home.
